Archive for June, 2009

Tuesday Twitter Revenge of the Fallen Last week, my older children and their cousins and uncles went to a late showing of Transformers II. Even though I liked the first movie, I stayed behind because (i) they wouldn’t get back until almost midnight, which is almost two hours past my bedtime, and (ii) the reviews […]

Vacation and the Epiphany Well, I’m back. A most-righteous vacation! Not really. It left something to be desired. Actually, it sucked. It was my annual week at Houghton Lake with Marie and her family. It totals around 40 in-laws, plus the nine in my family. We have our own place–a little 800-foot cabin situated down […]

Snopes is one of my “go to” sites. Reader’s Digest tells Snopes’ story. Nothing remarkable, but still interesting. So how much does a niche website that receives 6.2 million visits per month earn (this is traditionally “Econ Saturday” at TDE, after all)? The article doesn’t say. It just provides somewhat inconsistent clues: The married couple […]

Premise: The opening question that any political philosopher must grapple with: Can the state ever go past legendary King Pausole’s one law: “Hurt no man, then do as you will.” If so, when? On the surface, this is an easy question to answer: If another person isn’t getting hurt, the state should back off. But […]

Curmudgeonly Quotes “When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.” Jonathan Swift. “The great thing about Glasgow is that if there’s a nuclear attack it’ll look exactly the same afterwards.” Billy Connolly. “In general, the art of government consists […]

A Futuristic History Many readers of this book have probably heard of the United States or its alternative name, “America.” For many years, it reigned as the most powerful nation in the world, both economically and militarily. Like Rome (studied in Chapter Three), historians differ about when it become the world’s greatest power. All historians […]

De-Compressing (or Decomposing?) Chesterton once said that a rich person has to be smart enough to earn all that money and dumb enough to want it. Wise men through the ages–from Socrates to Russell Kirk–eschewed the money-grubbing life as antithetical to the life of the mind. I’m guessing Sertillanges cites freedom from crushing business concerns […]

Gift Me One of the nicest small pleasures in life: the unexpected gift. Someone walks up to you and says, “Here, I got this for you.” It happens to me about once a year. It’s often a book, sometimes it’s beer (the guy known as “Meistergoat” in the comments has brought me a few great […]

"The Daily Eudemon is the sort of thing that Chesterton or Mencken would be doing, if they were alive today. It's what, in saner times, was called journalism. In the writing and in the reading, it's exactly the sort of leisure we should want at the basis of culture."Mike Aquilina, Author of The Fathers of the Church and TV Talk Show Host.

"Literate Catholicism-urbane, witty, engaged-is alive and well! If you can read, you should be reading The Daily Eudemon!"David Scott, author of A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa

"If you like your blogs pithy, nimble, pointed, high-spirited, and waggish, then bookmmark Eric Scheske's The Daily Eudemon. Ooops! You want prolixity, density, meandering, dull, and sober? Then run (do not walk!) to the blogs of the major news outlets. They have just what you want. Honestly they do." John Peterson, Editor, G.K. Chesterton: Collected Works, Volumes 12 and 13.

"Eric Scheske's web site is full of information and insight. Always worth a read."James V. Schall, Author of Another Sort of Learning.